Blog ignorance
I was watching Larry King's interview with comedian Lewis Black last night when Larry's last question was whether Black had started a blog.
Absolutely not said Black, 'I refuse to blog.' He went on to say blog sounded like some condition, 'I have blog,' and that anyone without any authority can start a blog.
Larry then went on to bash blogs a bit saying anyone can start a blog on any subject and then start posting to the Internet. Elicited Black's response that it used to at least take a degree...
Reminded me of the Chief Marketing Officer at an AmLaw 100 law firm who didn't want 'her lawyers' blogging because they were not going to use a medium where just anyone without authority could say anything. How could anyone tell if it was a junior high kid in the basement or a lawyer with 20 years experience giving opinions on corporate privacy issues? Oh my God, what has the world come to?
Folks with these sorts of opinions let go of their common sense and have no clue how the Internet works. It's blog ignorance.
- A well done professional blog providing background information on who the blog publisher is and what they do distinguishes one with authority and one without.
- I can tell the difference between a 14 year old and a 45 year old lawyer writing about legal issues. Don't ask me how, I just can. And I think other non rocket scientists can as well.
- Google is very democratizing. Influence, importance, and high search engine rankings are determined by how many other important blogs and websites in your niche link to you. People who know nothing about a topic won't be sited and linked to. Their blogs will not be found on searches at Google.
- Bloggers without authority won't be referenced in the online conversation created by blog posts and news stories. Two thirds of people come to a blog from a link on another blog. The 'no authority' will not be linked to. People doing research on the subject will not see the 'no authority' referenced in blog posts and news stories. They'll see the thought leaders who have established their authority.
Bottom line, Internet users, by and large, are not idiots. Common sense allows them to decide who has some authority and not. People also tend to get information from more than one source - it's called research. Even if people see those without authority, they can dismiss their views. We make these sorts of common sense judgments every day.
I didn't really say this in my post on the same subject but I think Black's point was (humorously, and possibly truthfully) that he was an authority on nothing. And therefore he wasn't qualified to blog.
I don't think Black was objecting to people who really are authorities blogging.
You've got to admit, there's a lot of folks blogging on subjects they know next to nothing about.
And I agree that it shows in your blog posts which category you are in.
Saw your post on the ferry commute in this am Jamie - reminded me that was going to blog about it after seeing King and Black diss blogs a bit.
There may be folks blogging on things they know nothing about, but frankly I don't see a lot of them. I think if you're focused on sources and subjects in your niche, you eliminate a lot of static.
What's Technorati's ad say? '3 million blogs, not all of them are bad?" or something like that?
No, not all of them, but then, there aren't a million authorities on everything either...
Kevin - great post. It also makes me think about how in the "old days" (which was just a few years ago) people would automatically think everything they saw in the newspaper or on the evening news was true (if I only had a dollar for every mistake the LA Times made when reporting on legal issues). But why would we expect a news reporter to be more accurate than anyone else? A lot of people respond by saying that a report has a reputation to protect - but this just as true for every blogger that is trying to establish a credible blog.